Ask The Pilot

[jb747]

Luton airport closed today due to concerns runway would melt. Given many countries have 40 degree days not sure what the issue would be. Any thoughts?

Nothing in the UK can handle a mildly warm day....especially hotel a/c.

Gents. Most scenic domestic approach or departure? The wow factor ones.

Cairns?

To be honest none fall into the wow category. There are some arrivals at Sydney that give a good view of the city and bridge, but beyond that nothing comes to mind.

 

[justinbrett]

Aren't runways (on large airports) all concrete? Or is this not the case?

Not at all. Most Australian runways are asphalt. In fact, I can't think of a single runway here that's completely concrete.

Some (eg BNE & MEL) have concrete thresholds but the rest of the runway is asphalt.

 

[tgh]

"Modern" asphalt tends to be Polymer modified, some may notice the improved properties on newer motorways.
Temperature stabilisation is but one benefit.

 

[ausfox]

Maybe we should send someone over to LHR to advise them on how to build strips able to cope with 99F without melting.

 

[Flashback]

Maybe we should send someone over to LHR to advise them on how to build strips able to cope with 99F without melting.

Did LHR get hit today? I know LTN did yesterday.
Nothing mentioned about it here though.

Heatwave: Why is Heathrow so hot?

As the UK's highest ever temperature is recorded at Heathrow airport, why does it get so hot?

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[ausfox]

Reported as closed yesterday.

 

[ausfox]

You are correct Flashback, I took the word of US morning tv news. BBC reportEd it as Luton

 

[justinbrett]

You are correct Flashback, I took the word of US morning tv news. BBC reportEd it as Luton

Also RAF Brize-Norton - the equivalent of our RAAF Amberley (main Air Mobility base)

 

[Captain Halliday]

I understand Monday’s QF933 BNE-PER (738) declared a mayday due to fuel.

Any of our pilots care to comment on weather or other known factors?

I realise the general trend of delays at present are predominantly related to ground factors such as staffing etc. however, would you consider uploading a bit extra in the current environment to allow for delays getting a slot?

Edit: ATSB incident summary: Investigation: AO-2022-035 - Low fuel event involving Boeing 737-838, VH-VZO, abeam Wave Rock, Western Australia on 18 July 2022

 

[justinbrett]

I understand Monday’s QF933 BNE-PER (738) declared a mayday due to fuel.

Any of our pilots care to comment on weather or other known factors?

I realise the general trend of delays at present are predominantly related to ground factors such as staffing etc. however, would you consider uploading a bit extra in the current environment to allow for delays getting a slot?

From ATC POV, It's basically as reported in SMH.

Busy arrival sequence into PER, QF aircraft needed priority as they didn't have the fuel to hold as long as ATC wanted them to (note the big dog leg they'd already been given prior to TOD).

Back in the day you could just declare minimum fuel (MIN FUEL) and you'd get priority (aka BINGO). From my friend in SY TCU, he says that no longer moves you up in the sequence and you have to declare emergency fuel with a MAYDAY for any priority. It's not a rare occurrence at all.

 

[AviatorInsight]

Not that I have the final say but I’m always suggesting to carry more at the moment for holding delays, both on the ground and in the air.

Same with weather into Sydney recently. On a number of occasions the holding fuel has gone from 30mins to 60mins in flight. Not taking the extra juice would have caused a diversion.

 

[jb747]

I understand Monday’s QF933 BNE-PER (738) declared a mayday due to fuel.

Any of our pilots care to comment on weather or other known factors?

It’s another stupidity of Australian aviation. The rest of the world understands what “minimum fuel” means, and does not require declaration of an emergency, unless you’re in danger of flying a glider. If anything, this system adds to the danger, as many will be reluctant to declare an emergency, whilst they may have been quite happy to state “min fuel”. It also devalues the term “mayday”, and now it’s simply a version of the “excuse me” that you might use in a Coles queue. Are we seriously going to have the full airport emergency response, for an aircraft that proceeds to land with above the minimum reserves.

CASA is part of the problem here, as it allows airlines to have fuel policies that lead to the carriage of a bare minimum. Even worse, is the fact that airline management uses fuel ‘not carried’ as a goal for awarding bonuses. Not to the pilots who do the flying, but to the management that applies pressure to carry the minimum.

I realise the general trend of delays at present are predominantly related to ground factors such as staffing etc. however, would you consider uploading a bit extra in the current environment to allow for delays getting a slot?

I always found Australia to be one of the least reliable places when I came to use the crystal ball to order fuel. ATC would, almost as a matter of course, want more holding than you’d been advised or planned for. But the question is always how much extra. I recall once, when Sydney wanted 20 minutes of holding, that I had an extra 30 or so (which may have come from the variable fuel, not from ordering extra). After going around in circles for the better part of 50 minutes, we asked how much longer, and got an answer that made me think they thought the aircraft ran on air. We declared minimum fuel, and told them that we’d be leaving the holding point at the next crossing. Their response was to ask what our latest divert time was…and it had gone 30 odd minutes ago. Before changing frequencies we heard two other aircraft tell them or less the same thing, and that they’d be following us.

The upshot of all this is that the aircraft concerned almost certainly left with the holding fuel that Perth required. In flight, ATC decided that they wanted more holding than the aircraft could give them (and I’ll consider the dog leg to be part of the holding, as looks to be designed to cost about 10 minutes). The crew took the only option available to them by declaring an emergency, and landed above the minimum. To my mind the ”wrongdoing” was at the ATC end, in requiring more holding than they had advised.

 

[jrfsp]

It’s quite possible that QF933 didn’t have the spare payload to uplift any extra contingency fuel without offloading pax, flight time was approaching 6 hours

 

[JessicaTam]

Do pilots have the discretion to choose between offloading freight or passengers to allow for more fuel. What is the preference?

Thanks.

 

[jb747]

Do pilots have the discretion to choose between offloading freight or passengers to allow for more fuel. What is the preference?

There are many airlines in which pilots do not have the final discretion with regards to the fuel order. Thankfully, Oz has not reached that stage yet. I’m sure management are working on it.

I can probably think of exceptions in both directions, but as a general rule, when it came to offloading, pilots don’t specify (or care) what is actually left behind. If I needed it, I would tell flight planning that I wanted X fuel. It was up to them to work out where those kilos came from. Invariably, it started with staff and standby passengers, as they’re not in a hold and generally easily found. There were times when I really had trouble making the numbers work, because the load people had literally left me no leeway. In that case, especially if I was flying LAX-MEL, I’d tell them to put everything on…cargo and passengers. I’d decide as I passed Sydney whether I really wanted to continue. I wasn’t going to fly to Melbourne on the skin of my teeth, so if we are going to drop in to Sydney, we may as well carry as much and many as possible.

 

[docjames]

One for both our resident pilots.

In your commercial career, how often did you / have you to date, had to divert (out of total flights)?

 

[AviatorInsight]

One for both our resident pilots.

In your commercial career, how often did you / have you to date, had to divert (out of total flights)?

Out of about 2500 flights, only about a dozen or so. The amount of almost is a whole lot more but still a good strike rate.

 

[jb747]

Not many. LAX-MEL ended up in Sydney a couple of times, and Townsville from both HKG and Japan. Two diversions to Melbourne from Sydney. Only one overseas, when we went from London to Amsterdam. That was also the only diversion that started with a missed approach. There would have been many more if I’d been a “min fuel” person. Oh, and I guess I did go to Manila once too.

 

[docjames]

Thanks both for answering - reads as “pretty uncommon”, lots of “almost” but largely good pilot fuel planning and flight management avoided the majority.

 

[ChrisGibbs]

The pre-curfew "shoulder" landings into Sydney on RWY34 worked well until a missed approached and diversion is needed. 99.9% of the flights I was on worked a treat - apart from 1. From memory it was just after 5:00am and the BA SIN-SYD 777 service was in front of us and landed off the approach. I was on QF6 and according to the Capt we got down to the minima and could see anything so we found ourselves in BNE around 60 minutes later and back in Sydney around 3 hrs later. Apparently Canberra and Melbourne all had similar conditions to Sydney. The Capt said the conditions (Fog) wasn't forecast so they had to head to BNE as the alternate and didn't have the fuel to do another approach. I don't think the residents of Tempe, Sydneham, St Peters would have appreciated a QF 747 dumping the noise at low level at 5:10am in the morning. A question with this if, in the example above, the BA PIC pushed the minimas as landed off the approach does that then influence the drivers of the other aircraft to continue their approaches rather than bail out head to the alternate and get in front of the queue to be refuelled?

I've been on a few flight's where we've done some interesting things:

- touch and go and eventually land on the opposite direction RWY due to exceeding the maximum allowed downwind (EK 777 SIN-BNE, TAM A320)
- aborted the approach due to do the approach not being "stable" (not sure what was meant by this (QF 767 MEL-CBR, QF 744 SYD-HKG - Typhoon in the area)
- aborted the approach due to not becoming visual (too numerous to mention) - I'm always amazed at the rate of climb that is generated during this action compared to some of the de-rated take-offs that are done.
- aborted the take-off due to do a breakdown in separation (Aero Pelican SYD-WLM)
- aborted the take-off due to a malfunctioning engine (CX 747-200 - HKG (Kai Tak) - SYD)
- diverted 1-2hrs away from the destination (DFW-SYD (land in BNE), SIN-SYD (land in Melbourne or Adelaide), ADL-MEL (land back in ADL), SYD-LDH (land back in SYD)